


Ten Cents

by LapisLazooti



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Author is an actual trans person, Established Relationship, Fluff, Lovey-Dovey, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Smoking, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trans Male Character, Trans Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 13:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15534945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapisLazooti/pseuds/LapisLazooti
Summary: Steve and Bucky enjoy the comfort and secrecy of Bucky's new apartment.





	Ten Cents

**Author's Note:**

> Literally, just self-indulgent fluff written on a bad day. Two boys in love sharin a cigarette and chilling out. 
> 
> This takes place in 1935, Steve is 17 and Bucky is 18.

Bucky looks at Steve like he's made of sunshine and daisies. Like his hair was made of shimmering tinsel and golden thread woven by angels. Laying on his back on Bucky's bed, in Bucky's new apartment, dress discarded to the floor and a pair of Bucky's too-big trousers pulled over feeble legs and bony hips. When he was laying on his bare, twisted back like this, he could almost pretend his body was like a frailer, paler version of Bucky's. He could look down and see the valley between the slopes of his chest with gravity in his favor. 

And Bucky laid beside him on the tiny mattress, with that look in his eyes that made Steve feel like the most handsome man alive. As much as he loved his mama, he couldn't wait until he was able to move in here. To start anew, cut off the moppy mess of a bob from his head and trade in the constricting skirts and dresses for the freedom of button-ups and trousers. To move away from his old neighborhood to somewhere no one would recognize him when he was presenting how he'd like. How he was going to explain this to his mother, he had no idea - but this was an issue for another time. Because James Buchanan Barnes was beside him, in his black tank top and his boxers, a Paul Jones cigarette dangling from his lips. Looking like a Hollywood star in the most unfair way, hair all greased up with pomade and styled just like Clark Gable's. The sunlight peeking in from behind the curtains shines in from behind him, silhouetting him like a halo. Steve's heart flutters because he looks like an actual angel, like in the paintings hanging on the walls of their church and in the stories mama would tell him. He feels holy and right, having an angel like him giving him a look like that.

"You're real handsome, Buck." He says. Bucky's cigarette is between his lips to shut him up, the other's laugh resonating through the small room. Steve snorts.

"You are too." Steve feels his face heat up and Bucky can see it, too - the dorkiest grin spreading across his lips from ear to ear. "Real handsome. Handsomest man I've ever laid eyes on, ya looker." 

Steve has to remove the cigarette from his mouth so he can laugh, the smoke rolling past his lips as his head tilted back in laughter. It's Bucky's turn to think he's seen an angel, with his gilded hair all spread out against the pillow beneath him acting as his halo and the laughter spilling from his lungs the sound his lyre would make. "You can't say things like that."

"Why not? They're true. Would you rather have me lie to you? 'Cause I know Sarah Rogers didn't raise no sinner." His hand is on his chest the same way he would touch any other man's chest. Steve loves it, how he doesn't shy away from touching him unless he asks him too. He doesn't touch him like he would touch a dame, and that makes Steve feel like more of a man than ever

"I'm not that handsome. I look like an eight-year-old boy," Steve half-jokes. He sucked in one last breath of the cigarette before passing it back.

"You don't, 'cause that'd be weird for me to be in bed with you right now. The only way you look like a little kid is 'cause it looks like the only haircuts you've gotten came from your mama." He laughs something wonderful when Steve shoves him, not hard enough to move him even an inch. "What? it's true! Never set foot in a barber shop in your life. That'll change soon, though. 'Cause I ain't letting you or Sarah cut your hair. God bless your mama's heart but she'd probably mess it up something awful, gotta get someone who knows how to cut men's hair."

Steve beams. He can't wait until this is every morning for them, waking up next to each other in their too-small bed, but they don't mind because Steve is tiny and they love being so close. To wake up to the smell of Bucky making coffee and pancakes in the other room. He can't stop staring as Bucky leans over to put his cigarette in the ashtray resting on the bedside table, right next to a couple of dimes and a little tin of pommade. The bed and the table were just about the only furniture in the new apartment, save for an old wooden chair pushed into the corner. No dining table or chairs to eat at, no bookshelves or dressers, no radio. And yet, it felt like a home. With this near empty room furnished with only a bed, a small table, a chair, two boys in love and a hand full of Steve's drawings tacked up on the walls around them.

When Bucky turns back to him, he cups his hand around the other's jaw and pulls him into a kiss. His unshaven face is scratchy against his own peach fuzz-ridden one, and he loved every second of it. His lips fit perfectly against his own like a jigsaw puzzle, fit like their favorite deck of playing cards fit snugly in their box. Everything was warm and happy and safe in Bucky's - in their - little tobacco scented apartment where no one could see them. Where Steve could be Steve and Bucky could love Steve.

And dear god did Bucky love Steve.

Knowing that made the blonde feel like the luckiest man in the world. Even knowing that once Steve moved in and left his past identity behind they would have to be a secret, keeping their fingers intertwined and the kisses they shared like cigarettes only in the confines of this beaten down home they were making for themselves - he didn't mind, too much. Bucky was worth it, all the way. 

"Love ya," Bucky breathes out right against Steve's lips. "My handsome fella."

Steve wants to cry, he's so happy. But he won't, because he knows Bucky'll either freak out or tease him incessantly and continue to exclusively call him 'my handsome fella'. Which in all honesty, may not be such a bad thing. He opts out of starting the waterworks to instead bury his face into Buck's shoulder and inhaling the smell of cheap cologne and ten-cent cigarettes. "Love ya too, Jerk."


End file.
